Not after what happened to me.
Not after I found out my fiancée was cheating on our wedding day.
Her ex storming into the church, announcing that the last few months weren’t just a fling—that he wanted her back, begging her to leave with him.
And she did.
Took him on the honeymoon I paid for.
I was such a fool. I should’ve walked the first time she betrayed my trust, but I loved Dakota too much to do anything but take the punishment and clean up the pieces.
That’s what I do.
I wait. I endure. I pick up the messes people leave behind.
I thought that would make it all better.
So when Serena showed up at my bar months later, pleading for another chance, telling me our daughter needed me, I let her kiss me.
And for one stupid second, I almost believed I could live her lie, that I could live with the broken pieces.
But the next morning, when my dad and brother cussed me out for even considering it, I told her to meet me at the bar.
And I ended it.
"The next woman I kiss will be my wife."
Her laugh cut me to shreds.
"Right, like you of all people could wait to kiss someone till you’re married? That’s a joke. You need love like most people need oxygen."
And maybe she was right.
Maybe she still is.
It’s been over a year, but the scar hasn’t faded yet.
On stage, Patty and Lou’s final note rings through the venue, shaking something loose in my chest.
The crowd erupts, and a flash of movement catches my eye.
"What do you want to happen?" I asked Kayla that night.
"That wasn’t clear from my wish?" she asked, swirling ice around in her glass. "You’d make a terrible genie."
I couldn’t stop the smile that spread across my face.
I wouldn’t pursue her.
But not responding to her wit, her spark, the way she made the world seem more vibrant?
Impossible.
"Let me rephrase: what are you going to make happen?"
That took her off guard. I could see it in her body language—the moment she realized she wasn’t trapped.
She had choices.
